How to Embrace a Swamp Creature
by shadowfire125
Summary: When Perry shows up injured on his balcony, Doofenshmirtz considers his strange relationship with the secret agent. Human!Perry AU.


_For a more detailed description of my take on human!Perry, visit my art tag on tumblr. (I have the same_ username._) Title lifted off the song by the Mountain Goats because I'm uncreative._

* * *

Their daily rounds of good versus evil had become something of a game. Slowly, without ever realizing it, they forgot they were supposed to be enemies. It was just something they did. Perry was a secret agent, and Doofenshmirtz was an evil scientist. It was just their job. They created their own reality with each other. For those few moments a day, they lived somewhere else, somewhere without true consequence. Somewhere where things would just reset themselves every day.

This left Perry with three worlds – one where he was Just Cousin Perry Who Doesn't Do Much, one where he was one of the OWCA's top agents, and one where he was Doofenshmirtz's nemesis. He could slide in and out of these worlds with practiced ease.

Doofenshmirtz was much less grounded in reality. Things tangled and intertwined. Vanessa and Charlene and Perry – the lines blurred and twisted. At the neatest, his life was like a Venn diagram, with Perry on one side and Charlene on the other, and Vanessa in the middle. It was all real, a jumbled mass of happiness and harshness.

It never occurred to him that of Perry's worlds, their world together was the softest.

* * *

Doofenshmirtz hadn't seen Perry in a few days, which was fine, because he hadn't come up with any new evil inventions lately. He felt stuck in a rut. The ideas running through his head seemed stupid, even by his standards.

He was sprawled out on his couch, listening to the rain patter on the roof of the building, when he heard the familiar sound of someone landing on the balcony, muffled by the closed sliding glass door. Confused, he sat up and turned around. "Perry the Platypus? But I haven't got anything planned… for…" He trailed off as he took in the secret agent, who was leaning heavily on the sliding door, hands leaving bloody smears on the glass.

In an instant, Heinz was on his feet and pushing the door open to let Perry in. The shorter man toppled inside, into Doofenshmirtz's arms. The scientist sank to the floor under Perry's surprising weight.

The agent was a mess. His hat and tie were missing, and a deep red stain was spreading over the side of his usually spotless white shirt. His lip was split, his nose looked broken, and a nasty bruise was slowly purpling on his cheekbone. Doofenshmirtz's brain screeched to a halt.

Perry smiled weakly at him. "'S nae as bad as it looks," he murmured. "Jes' need soomwhere ta stay."

"But you're… you're bleeding!" Doofenshmirtz held up Perry's head with one hand and waved around his other, feeling completely out of his depth.

Perry sighed, and Doofenshmirtz could see how exhausted he was. He was barely awake. The villain struggled to recall what he knew about injuries, which was actually a fairly decent reservoir, gained from treating himself after various failed experiments. He just didn't work well under pressure. "Perry, don't- don't fall asleep. I'm going to look at your side, okay?" Heinz bit his lip, but didn't wait for the agent to respond, pulling up the bloodstained shirt to get a better look at the wound. It wasn't too deep – it looked like a bullet had clipped him, leaving a tear in his side. It would need stitches, but Doofenshmirtz could do stitches. He tore off a large section of Perry's shirt and wadded it up, pressing it to the wound. Hopefully the agent hadn't lost too much blood.

"Can, can you stand? We need to get to the bathroom, that's where I keep my things, and, and it'll be easier to clean up all this blood-"

Perry grabbed his nemesis' arm, effectively cutting Doofenshmirtz off before he went into full ramble mode. Doofenshmirtz helped Perry to his feet, grunting, "You know, you're very heavy for someone so short."

Perry stepped on Doofenshmirtz's foot, putting his weight into it. "Ouch, hey, no call for that!"

They made it to the bathroom without further incident, and Doofenshmirtz helped Perry out of what was left of his shirt and eased him into the bathtub. "Okay, this is going to really hurt because I don't have any anesthetic… but you probably already knew that." He swallowed, feeling a twist of nausea as he got out his medical supplies. "I've never actually done this to another person," he said. "Honestly, it's kinda, it's kinda making me anxious."

Perry just stared hazily at him.

"Right, right. Um, how about I straighten your nose first? That seems kind of… worse, we should get it over with, right?" It didn't seem worse to Doofenshmirtz, but he wasn't looking forward to essentially sewing someone else's flesh. Shoving down his queasiness, he put his fingers on either side of Perry's nose and…

_Crack!_

Heinz's stomach lurched as Perry bit back a strangled cry. In a show of willpower he didn't know he had, he managed not to puke.

Now there was nothing for it. It was time for stitches. He took out the needle and thread and knelt by the bathtub. Taking a deep breath, he tried and failed to keep his hands from shaking. He closed his eyes, cursing his weakness.

Perry put one of his hands over Doofenshmirtz's. The scientist's eyes sprang open in surprise to meet Perry's unfocused gaze. "I trust ye," Perry said, his hand sliding limply away.

Doofenshmirtz gulped, steeled himself, and got to work.

* * *

Once he was satisfied Perry would be alright, he managed to get the agent to the couch, where Perry slipped away into much-needed sleep.

Leaving Doofenshmirtz completely alone.

Doofenshmirtz didn't do well alone.

He cleaned the glass door and the bathroom to distract himself, but neither of those things took very long, so he alphabetized his blueprints, swept the floor, and took out the trash. Anything to keep himself from thinking.

Inevitably, thinking happened. Worn out from stress and obsessive cleaning, he straddled a chair and folded his arms over the back of it, letting his eyelids droop as he watched Perry sleep.

The agent must have been on some other mission. It had never before occurred to Doofenshmirtz that Perry got other assignments, and now he wondered why. What did he _think_ Perry did whenever Doofenshmirtz wasn't up to something? Sit around eating ice cream and crying over Latino soaps? While that was an amusing mental image, Perry had to have a whole other life.

That thought sent a pang through his heart. How big a part of Perry's life _was_ Doofenshmirtz? They didn't always do battle every day, because Heinz couldn't always build something every day. Did he have family? Friends? He must. Who else did he do battle with? What was he like when he wasn't saving the Tri-State Area?

Just as crippling insecurity was about to overtake him, Doofenshmirtz recalled what Perry had said earlier. _I trust you_.

Nemeses weren't supposed to trust each other. Then again, when Heinz thought about it, the word nemesis had slowly come to mean something else, at least when applied to Perry. More than anything, Perry was a friend. It was almost terrifying how much Doofenshmirtz cared about the secret agent.

And Perry cared about him back. Perry _trusted_ him, enough to show up on his doorstep injured and half-conscious. Doofenshmirtz was pretty sure that the young Scot didn't trust just _anybody_. His trust was earned.

Doofenshmirtz wondered what he'd done to earn it.

* * *

It was light outside when Doofenshmirtz awoke to a screaming pain in his lower back. Falling asleep on the chair had been a mistake. He arched his back, causing a series of pops and cracks along his spine.

Then he noticed that the couch was empty. His mouth twisted in disappointment. He would have though Perry would at least say goodbye before he just took off.

The sound of running water reached his ears, and he followed it to the bathroom. Perry stood at the sink, examining his nose in the mirror. "Oh, there you are, Perry," said Doofenshmirtz. "Feeling better?"

Perry smiled and nodded, shutting off the faucet.

"You going to tell me what happened?"

The agent shook his head.

Doofenshmirtz crossed his arms. "Yeah, that's okay. I just saved your life, no biggie."

"Thank ye, doc," Perry said. "But I cannae tell ye."

Doofenshmirtz sighed. Secret agents and their secrets. "Fine. So do you want breakfast or what?"

Perry grinned.

* * *

Perry ended up taking over making breakfast. Heinz had started, but then he said that he wanted to test something out and there had been a scuffle over whether Doofenshmirtz could use an inator to make breakfast and Perry had nearly pulled his stitches, so the scientist had relented. Doofenshmirtz was behind on his grocery shopping, but Perry was able to rustle up the ingredients for some decent omelets.

They sat around a rickety fold-up table in the corner of Doofenshmirtz's lab and ate in silence. After a while, Doofenshmirtz put his fork down. "Thanks," he said.

Perry gave him a questioning glance, a forkful of omelet paused midair.

Heinz looked away. "For, you know, trusting me."

Perry lowered his fork.

Now that he had started, he couldn't stop. "I know our relationship is primarily based on violence and animosity, but it, it means a lot to me. I don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to relationships – I mean, Charlene and I are pretty tense, Vanessa's a _teenager_, and I won't even mention my family. And, and we're supposed to be enemies, but these days I'm even questioning _that_-"

Perry tapped on the table to get the doctor's attention. Doofenshmirtz reluctantly dragged his wandering gaze back to Perry. The agent was smiling. It wasn't anything like the smirk he wore when one of Doofenshmirtz's plans backfired, or the silent laughter. It was a soft, understanding smile, and it drained Heinz's anxiety away. He found himself smiling back.

"Have some more omelet," said Perry.

Doofenshmirtz accepted a second helping of breakfast, simultaneously accepting that their relationship would never be definable in words, nor would it ever be in black and white. It could only be described in the little moments that spoke wordless volumes – a smile, a rescue, or another serving of omelet.


End file.
